Film
Riz Ahmed and Steven Yeun Earn Historic Best Actor Nominations at Academy Awards
Two of the best film performances of 2020 were Riz Ahmed in Sound of Metal and Steven Yeun in Minari, and both actors were rightfully nominated for Best Actor at the upcoming Academy Awards because of such. However, in addition to the general excitement of Ahmed and Yeun getting those well-deserved nods, this also means they just made history as the first Muslim actor and first Asian American actor, respectively, to be nominated in the category. In Sound of Metal, Ahmed plays a heavy metal drummer named Ruben who’s learning to live with the loss of hearing, particularly in regards to his career as a musician and his love life — a performance that required him to study with an ASL coach for nearly a year. It’s an intimate and deeply moving character study, especially compared to the bi...
Zack Snyder’s Justice League Is An Audacious Mess: Review
The Pitch: Well, it’s finally here: the infamous “Snyder Cut.” The rallying cry of DC fanboys for nearly half a decade, Zack Snyder’s original version of the DC cinematic universe’s Avengers equivalent before studio meddling and a tragic death in the family led the oft-maligned director to step away and let Joss Whedon get his grubby, quippy little hands all over his self-serious, baroque baby. The 2017 version was visibly, obnoxiously, the product of two directors with warring approaches wrestling with a single project: Snyderesque aesthetics clashed mightily with repetitive, snarky repartee that didn’t seem to befit the DC verse’s grumpiest heroes. It was a bit more fun, but incredibly uneven, and featured one of cinema’s most horrifying upper lips. But now, amid enormous, organized...
Avatar Surpasses Avengers: Endgame as Highest-Grossing Film of All Time
In July 2019, Avengers: Endgame surpassed James Cameron’s Avatar as the highest-grossing film in box office history. Now, less than two years later, Avatar is back to reclaim its throne. Earlier this morning, Disney announced that Avatar had retaken the all-time global box office thanks to the film’s recent re-release in China. Avatar is estimated to have a new worldwide gross of $2.802 billion — roughly $5 million more than Avengers: Endgame‘s $2.797 billion, reports Deadline. On Friday, a reissue of the 2009 blockbuster was released in China, which is responsible for bumping up the movie’s overall total haul in less than two days. In a way, that’s par for the course with Avatar. As Deadline notes, Cameron’s movie achieved that milestone with a number of re-releases since its original run...
Primal Scream: An Oral History of The Howling
“What if this is a movie where the characters have actually seen a horror movie?” –John Sayles By the dawn of the 1980s, there hadn’t been a genuinely successful werewolf film in years. And in the wake of films like The Last House on the Left and Halloween, which brought horror to the cities and suburbs where most Americans lived, torch-wielding villagers and mythical monsters lurking around the European countryside seemed quant. Even when the cinematic werewolf mythology was occasionally modernized in the 1970s, with films like Werewolves on Wheels and The Werewolf of Washington, the results were lackluster. But just as the sub-genre appeared to lose its bite, The Howling burst onto screens and changed everything. The first in a series of three werewolf-centric films released in 1981 — Wo...
2021 Razzie Nominations: Wonder Woman 1984, Hillbilly Elegy, and Rudy Giuliani Tapped As This Year’s Lowlights
The 2021 Razzie nominations are here. Officially dubbed the Golden Raspberry Awards, the beloved annual ceremony bestows prizes to the most amazingly awful movies, acting performances, and directing jobs of the year. Even though 2020 was historically light on new content, the Razzies trudged forward. The 41st iteration of the awards is broken down into nine categories such as Worst Picture, Worst Actor, Worst Screenplay, etc. There’s a decent array of films that made the overall list, but some of the repeat offenders are Robert Downey Jr.’s Dolittle remake, Ron Howard’s Hillbilly Elegy adaptation, Sia’s controversial Music, Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984, and of course Mike “The My Pillow Guy” Lindell’s hilariously atrocious pro-Trump romp, Absolute Proof. Other notew...
Stacey Dash Walks Back Trump Support: “I Made a Lot of Mistakes Because of That Anger”
Clueless actress and former Fox News commentator Stacey Dash has walked back some of the statements she made in support of Donald Trump, telling the Daily Mail that she was “angry,” and that, “I made a lot of mistakes because of that anger.” While stopping short of denouncing the former president, she expressed regret at the ways she defended his actions or attacked his predecessor Barack Obama. She first appeared on Fox in 2014, and her short stay at the network was full of controversy. Fox suspended her in 2015 after she cursed on air, saying that Obama didn’t “give a shit,” about terrorism. In 2016, she called for an end to Black History month and said that America needed to “get rid of” the BET network and the NAACP Awards. “I’ve lived my life being angry, which is what ...
Paul Reubens Documentary Coming to HBO
Pee-wee Herman actor Paul Reubens is the subject of an upcoming HBO documentary produced by Uncut Gems filmmakers the Safdie Brothers. Directed by Matt Wolf, the two-part documentary is described as “a kaleidoscopic portrait told in two parts” and “traces the life of the imaginative artist behind one of pop culture’s most celebrated and unlikely icons: Pee-wee Herman.” “I’ve been working with HBO since they were called Home Box Office! I’m honored and excited to continue my long history there. I love HBO, but I’m not going to marry them,” Reubens said in a statement. Reubens last appeared in Netflix’s 2016 film, Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, as his signature character. In January 2020, he spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about his long-gestating “dark Pee-wee movie.” During the interview, h...
Kid 90 Is A Personal Portrait of ’90s Teen Celebrity: Review
The Pitch: Comprised almost entirely of home video tapes, audio recordings, and journal entries — interspersed with interviews conducted in the present day — ’90s child star Soleil Moon Frye reflects on her star-studded upbringing in Hollywood and grapples with the nature of growing up in front of the camera as she unearths firsthand accounts of stardom from her youth. Teen Idol: At the risk of speaking too soon, 2021 seems like the year of documentaries about young women growing up in the spotlight. There was Framing Britney Spears, Billie Eilish’s The World’s a Little Blurry, and now kid 90. Though they have the same subject matter, they each tackle coming-of-age for young women in the limelight through three drastically different points of view. Kid 90, crucially, is directed by Frye he...
Netflix Testing Feature to Crack Down on Password Sharing
Netflix password sharing could soon be a thing of the past. As spotted by GammaWire, the streaming service is starting to test a pop-up screen meant to stop viewers from attempting to use somebody’s account. “If you don’t live with the owner of this account, you need your own account to keep watching,” the warning reads. It also asks users to verify the account via email or text. However, there is a “verify later” option allowing viewers to bypass the prompt for now, according to Twitter user DOP3Sweet, who shared the image above. In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix confirmed the new feature. “This test is designed to help ensure that people using Netflix accounts are authorized to do so,” a spokesperson for the streaming giant said. THR further reported that the extent of th...
Dave Lombardo and Scott Ian Record Score for Melissa McCarthy’s Netflix Film Thunder Force
Thrash metal legends Dave Lombardo and Scott Ian contributed to the score of the upcoming Netflix film Thunder Force, starring Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer. Lombardo (founding drummer for Slayer and current member of Dead Cross, Suicidal Tendencies, and the Original Misfits) and Ian (founding Anthrax guitarist) recently collaborated together as part of the reunited Mr. Bungle, recording 2020’s The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo. Composer Fil Eisler brought the metal icons in on the movie project, sharing the news in a tweet with a picture of the trio together: “I have the pleasure of not only scoring the movie but having two of my childhood heroes @Scott_Ian and @TheDaveLombardo play on the score.” In a retweet, Lombardo added, “April 9th!! Save the date comedy loving d...
Life of Agony to Release Feature-Length Documentary The Sound of Scars
Life of Agony have announced the screening of their new feature-length documentary, The Sound of Scars, starting April 16th. The two-week virtual screening of the documentary will include a Q&A discussion with the band and the director, moderated by SiriusXM’s Shawn the Butcher. Tickets are available for pre-order at this location with a portion of proceeds going to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and All Out. Directed by Leigh Brooks, the 90-minute film compiles personal archive footage, rare photographs, and lost interviews, along with new, never-before-seen conversations with the band and their family members. Footage was also shot over the past two years while the band was on and off tour. Per the press release, the documentary “tells the story of how three friends overcam...
That Bee Gees Biopic Is Stayin’ Alive with Kenneth Branagh as Director
When news first broke that Graham King, producer of the treacly Queen flick Bohemian Rhapsody, would be making a biopic about the Bee Gees, serious fans around the world screamed, “Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!” But now our hopes for a good movie are stayin’ alive, as Variety reports that Sir Kenneth Branagh has been tapped as director. After establishing himself in the 1980s and ’90s as an actor and director of Shakespearian adaptations, Branagh became a constant presence on Hollywood sets, moving into a new phase when he helmed Marvel’s Thor in 2011. The five-time Oscar nominee’s recent credits include Murder on the Orient Express and Artemis Fowl, and if that doesn’t inspire confidence, rest assured that few filmmakers today are as qualified to make a movie about men with astoundi...
